When the weed grows in Binghamton

Alone in an empty classroom after hours, no one would suspect that the student diligently doing homework also regularly sells quarter-pounds of homegrown marijuana. Wishing to remain anonymous, he said he prefers the title of supplier to that of dealer.

“I’m totally cool with people doing drugs,” he said. “But they need to be educated about it.”

On a regular basis, the student just sticks to selling weed that he grows in the Binghamton area and back at home.

“Anything else is a one-time big deal usually,” he said. “Or considering I have some leftover MDMA, I guess I sell that too.”

He got involved growing weed primarily when his dad approached him about the idea at random. His family, he said, knows everything about what he does.

“My dad was flipping through channels and there was some weed documentary,” he said. “He turned to me and said, ‘Why don’t you put a couple of plants in the garden this year?’”

Categorizing his parents as “really straight-going people,” he said calling dealing a family business would be “really weird.” But he did add that his dad grew weed in the 1970s and his mom sold weed throughout high school.

Because he said he “doesn’t put any effort into it,” his clientele is made up of students only. He does not get approached by locals and mainly sells to friends.

“I don’t send out texts or anything like that, I just wait for people to ask me — I don’t want to be known,” he said. “There are some people who you know to go to for weed. I don’t do that, also because I don’t sell in small amounts really.”

When handling drugs other than weed, he said he acts as a middleman. Since he’s “the only person who understands bitcoins, somehow,” he orders drugs for people for personal use or to deal.

“I’ll usually take a cut, and maybe they know that or they don’t,” he said. “I have sold acid, mushrooms, MDMA, 2-FMA, Vyvanse, etizolam, deschloroketamine, mexedrone, DMT, methoxetamine and 3-MeO-PCP. That’s everything from last year.”

Three questions later, he stopped mid-sentence: “Flubromazepam. I also sold that recently.”

While that list may be long, there are still some substances he refuses to supply.

“I won’t deal with coke,” he said. “In part, it’s because of the cost. But I really don’t support the trade and exploitation of Peruvian, Bolivian and Colombian farmers.”

But his reasons are not only ethical. “The people involved with coke are also usually pretty shitty,” he said. “And it’s dangerous.”

Opiates and Xanax, specifically, are also on his no-fly list. Pressed Xanax, he said, can look like a 2-milligram pill but will really contain 3.5 milligrams. The difference between two and 3.5 was one he categorized as “a fuck-ton.”

He said that college kids tend to avoid other benzodiazepines and stick to Xanax.

“They tend to overdo it and don’t understand that you can’t mix it with alcohol,” he said. “I won’t be responsible for somebody’s irresponsibility.”

When discussing drug use, he said he takes safety seriously. He tests the drugs he orders online personally, with his own kit.

“Methoxetamine was extremely popular from 2012 to 2015, and in October of 2015, the last batch was manufactured in China before a blanket ban,” he said. “I found a guy from China who said he had a lab making it. I bought some. I was suspicious, and the reactions from my test kit weren’t fully lining up and looking right. So I sent it to a lab to get tested.”

He said that this was the only time he had sent a drug out for testing, but he was glad he did.

“I got a refund,” he said. “I ended up with a mystery drug, some mexedrone, and $400 back in my pocket.”

His least favorite drug that he has done is diphenhydramine, the chemical name for Benadryl, which he said is a deliriant that makes the user unable to associate their feelings when using the drug. He said his experience was “miserable. I basically was just paralyzed in my bed for eight hours.”

On a darker note, his least favorite drug overall is Carfentanil. Opiodlike in nature, it is active at one microgram. He said heroin is currently being cut with it in many places because it is so cheap.

“You can get enough of it from China for $500 to kill 10,000 people,” he said. “There is no way to properly dilute it in a powder solution because it is on a molecular level, and you’ll always have what are called hot spots. You can’t actually cut it into heroin properly.”

He added that any visible amount of it is enough to kill a person.

“It’s used for whale and elephant surgery — it has no place in the human body.”

His favorite drug is methoxetamine, which was originally created by a chemist to combat phantom limb syndrome. According to him, it is similar to ketamine and can work as an antidepressant in small doses without negative side effects. But, he added, ketamine causes severe bladder and renal failure with long-term addiction. Since the active dose of methoxetamine is lower than ketamine, he said it doesn’t have the same impact on the renal system.

“I really have no idea why it’s my favorite,” he said. “It’s perfect? It also might be my favorite because now it’s unavailable. There is an allure to it because there is a set amount in the world right now that will not increase and only decrease.”

And as far as college drug culture goes, he said, students really need more education.

“I’m totally cool with people doing drugs, but everybody thinks it’s OK to take Xanax and drink, when that is one of the easiest ways to die. Know what it does to your body beforehand,” he shrugged. “I’m just all about safety.”